


Deadheading

by jenna_thorn



Category: Gaiman's Endless
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-10
Updated: 2005-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5455586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>With grateful thanks to  <span class="ljuser"></span><a href="http://amanuesis1.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://amanuesis1.livejournal.com/"><b>amanuesis1</b></a> for a beta, but I’ve rather changed some bits, so any remaining errors are wholly mine.</p><p> </p></blockquote>





	Deadheading

Lucien rolls his eyes as Mervyn walks by with a doughnut, scattering powdered sugar like ash as he says, "What's heroin chic?"

"I've absolutely no idea, why? "

"The Fashion thing was swearing. "

"Ah, yes, I thought I heard her. Is she still in pirate mode? "

"How long have you been inside? That was months ago," Mervyn grunts and brushes sugar off his hands onto his pants, scattering it liberally over the library floor. "At least she's out of the flapper phase."

"I rather enjoyed that."

"Shoulda known you were a leg man. Myself, I like a little cushion for the pushin’...” Lucien’s eyes narrow and Mervyn continues in a low-voiced growl, “something to hold on to...a chicken breast, a rack of lamb…” Lucien’s jaw twitches and Mervyn chuckles as he ducks his head to light a cigar, "Yeah, well, I was just afraid one of those strings of beads would break and I'd be chasing silver glass balls all over the place." They pause to allow the last of a column of wheat pass, each stalk carried by a pair of ants, all on their way to a bakery in Paris in the mind of an accountant in Des Moines. Mervyn taps the ash from his cigar and mutters, "I need roller skates. These halls are just too long. " He avoids Lucien’s half hearted attempt at a reproving look with the ease of long practice and says, "Right, well, whatever. Anyway I came up here with a purpose. Really. Margie's fading, thought you might want to say toodles." He leaves in a cloud of foul smoke as Lucien stands shocked for a long moment by Mervyn’s unexpected grasp of the subtle.

Lucien walks to the window and presses down on the waist high sill until it is low enough for him to step onto a balcony, not surprised to find stairs leading to the Gardens already there. His Master is king of the land, but he, in many ways, is master of the library. And in this land, subconscious desires are far stronger than reality.

He will miss the garden, when it changes. As it both has and will. Today an orchard stretches into the distance foreshortening itself like a matte painting as he descends. He remembers the desert that stretched to the edge of reality before the trees returned and the grass crept over sand encroaching on disaster, rebuilding and soothing and making whole. A happy king makes for a fertile land. Lucien is glad for more than his own irrational fondness for his lord. He has never found a jagged rock landscape soothing.

He reaches the bottom of the stair to find a small brown elf strapping a saddle to a black and white hare. A halbard the size of a quill pen leans against the edge of the step and Lucien pauses to allow the elven warrior to reclaim it before stepping over them both. There are a handful of rabbits around the garden, but no others with martial accessories. That is undoubtedly for the best.

Marjorie spends too much time in the garden to be healthy in the waking world. She's been a fixture for months, always in a cotton skirt, floral gloves and a hat with a bright yellow scarf. Though he watches the Fashion Thing from a wary distance, he does attend to the dreaming visitors to his own shelves. The modesty of her dress indicates her age, and he is quite sure that the body attached to this particular dreamer is no longer hale, flushed from the sun, eyes bright and lips rosy. She shoos away a rabbit and rocks back on her heels to squint up at him.

"How long have we had rabbits?" The words float from his mouth and he cringes. It is too late now to pull them back, letters floating away from his mouth like jagged crystal in the sun. He is not a part of her world. They are not we.

"They showed up recently. It's funny, actually, because I was thinking about them. Watership Down is out on the disc things, the DVDs, so my daughter's been telling me about how all the kids got halfway through and ran from the room crying, and all the adults sat and watched it.  
She tells these long wandering stories about everyone, the kids, my brother, her neighbors. I wish there were some way to let her know that I hear them." She brushes her sleeve across her brow again, rubbing down across her eyes. "I'm more a fan of the Velveteen Rabbit. I always thought I'd like to write a children's book, but I never found the time. Too many other things to do first."

Mervyn is right; she is translucent around the edges. The bright ribbon on her straw hat is sheer at both ends, dangling from the looping bow. He joins her for lemonade, alternately over-sweet and tart, and eventually says his goodbyes as she returns to her planting.

He leaves her then and returns to his domain, nodding at the denizens of his lord's world as he passes them. Familiar faces in unfamiliar clothing, or new faces in timeless garb. He knows he will find, if not today then tomorrow, a new shelf of books with bright colors and small worlds, unwritten sequels in which no one dies and grandmothers knit and have grey hair and call their great-grandchildren by name.

The garden will come again when there is a gardener who calls it, but she will not. And he will not visit the next gardener who spends hours of each day planting daisies and chrysanthemums. And for a moment of his endless service, he feels very lonely.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> With grateful thanks to [](http://amanuesis1.livejournal.com/profile)[**amanuesis1**](http://amanuesis1.livejournal.com/) for a beta, but I’ve rather changed some bits, so any remaining errors are wholly mine.
> 
>  


End file.
